A Taiwanese marine expert has been invited to attend this year's East Asia Sea Congress and the government is mapping out plans to join a related UN organization as an observer in the future.
According to Minister without Portfolio Yeh Jiunn-rong (
"We won't be absent from the event, although we're not a member," Yeh said. "As an ocean state with rich marine resources, we're the only country in the East Asian region not included in the program and not invited to the congress."
Worried that media exposure of the event would provoke China, the invited expert, who asked not to be named, said that the media should help the nation in its bid to enter the program.
"Our intent is pure and simple: We'd like to make some contribution to the congress and the entire region. Whether we'll be able to do so is at the mercy of the press," he said.
The East Asia Sea Congress, composed of the International Conference and the Ministerial Forum on the Sustainable Development of the Seas of East Asia, will be held in Putrajaya, Malaysia. The International Conference will be held from Dec. 8 to Dec. 11, followed by the Ministerial Forum on Dec. 12.
The recommendations and conclusions of the International Conference will be submitted to the Ministerial Forum.
The International Conference will focus on a review of international and national efforts towards addressing the concerns regarding the seas of East Asia, and the approaches and processes towards achieving sustainable development.
The conference will gather concerned stakeholders, policy-makers, economists, environmental and natural resource managers, representatives of non-government organizations, media practitioners, academics and the private sector to discuss various issues.
Participating ministers will discuss the state of the region's natural resources and agree on a common framework of action for the East Asian seas, also known as the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA).
It is hoped that participating ministers and stakeholders will agree to endorse the SDS-SEA and commit to its implementation through policy formulation and action programs at regional, sub-regional, national, and local levels.
Launched in October 1999, the PAMSEA program received a US$16.2 million contribution from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and another US$12.5 million co-financed primarily by the participating governments and other partners.
Member states include China, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Recognizing the threats to their own living environment, the 12 countries decided to work together to protect the life support systems of the seas of East Asia and to enable the sustainable use of their renewable resources.
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